War's Diplomats
by Dreaming of Everything
Summary: The fight against the Akatsuki forced the hidden villages to ally, and the bonds formed by fighting together are hard to break. Now they need to hammer out peacetime treaties, and the diplomats aren't necessarily friends... JirobouHinata, oneshot, crack.


**War's Diplomats**  
**By Dreaming of Everything**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto, and clearly **should** not own Naruto, seeing as I have written this.

**Timeline**: Technically possible (extremely unlikely) future timeline, so technically not actually an AU as of how far I've read. Slightly AU in that the story runs on the assumption that at least a few of the Sound 4/5 _might_ have survived.

**Author's Notes:** Father, I have sinned…

Yes, I am clearly on crack, and probably not the good stuff. Somebody should probably confiscate my keyboard.

Jiroubou/Hinata is probably out there in something other than this, and that makes me a sad panda. But not as sad as I could be. And probably should be. Fanfiction does terrible, terrible things to both my mind and my morals. Please contribute to my delinquency and review!

Also, this is _really frikken long_. 28 pages by my count—it would **not** let me stop writing it.

**Note: This is a **_**completed oneshot**_** and will not be continued.**

** Edited 7/7/07 because I am an idiot and forgot to replace some of my in-text notes with what I was supposed to replace them with.  
**

oOoOoOo

It was not surprising that Hinata was eventually named a diplomat for Leaf: she was polite, apparently unthreatening and from a high-status clan while at the same time being a gifted shinobi—not to mention one with a genetic makeup perfect for spying.

It was more surprising that Jiroubou was named a diplomat for Sound, seeing as, for quite a few years, Sound had been at unofficial war with Leaf (and, due to several other factors, most of the rest of the shinobi world,) and Sound had had very little need for diplomats at all.

Of course, Orochimaru was never even half the threat the Akatsuki had been, with or without variously-tailed demons, much as that may have disappointed (and infuriated) him. But even he had to eventually face the overwhelming threat they represented. In a battle between titans, the smallest tend to be the first to fall, and while Orochimaru had the highest percentage of fighting-ready warriors (100 percent, that is) and perhaps the highest average skill-level, he also had the smallest number of troops to draw on.

Even Konoha wanted any allies it could scrape together in the fight against the Akatsuki, regardless of personal history. Every village did, drawing together; it was the first and probably last time that the majority of the hidden villages would be allied. Ninja organizations are, by nature, inclined to try to do things on their own as much as possible. Even then, most people suspected that Orochimaru had been allowed to live only because of the inside information he had had access to.

Leaf had not been thrilled, but that was how things worked. Survival first, vengeance later. It had helped that Orochimaru had died during the war—the Akatsuki had been formidable opponents, even against the combined might of multiple hidden villages, even when those villages had given the battle first or close to first priority. Every one of them was at a level comparable to a kage, and they had gathered their own underlings, once the lines of battle had been drawn and it was clear that the biggest advantage the villages had was numbers. _If five died, you threw fifteen of a higher rank at them. If they died, it was 50._

At the end of it all, the villages were too tired for grudges. And the people—

In a hidden village, you were a ninja or a family member was a ninja or your best friend or your best friend's daughter or your storekeeper's husband was a ninja, and the leaders of the village were ninja and the teachers of your children were ninja and you relied on ninja to keep you safe, day-to-day. And in the war, teams had been thrown together from multiple villages, or had been supported by units from other villages, or cooperated when they met in the fields. And everyone had stories…

_A shinobi from Sand took a shuriken for Keiko's son while he was starting a complex jutsu. Leaf medic-nin kept me from losing my leg to gangrene. Cloud __tacticians kept my neighbor's unit from walking into an ambush—they had just passed each other, nothing more, and they warned them about what was ahead. A messenger on his way from Mist__ to here brought me a letter from my father, who was stationed out at the front. Someone from Sound sat with a wounded member of my team and talked to her until she died; she had gotten trapped up in some genjutsu and bolted, and we hadn't been able to find her in time. At least she didn't die alone._

It wouldn't last, of course. Alliances and relationships between the hidden villages were notoriously unstable. But, for now at least, there was unity—a tense, slowly shattering, political peace and the fierce loyalty of saved lives stretching between and through and amongst villages of people who had killed each other and tried to kill each other in the past. They would kill each other and try to kill each other in the future.

But for now, the ceasefire lasted. Politics in hidden villages were far more democratic than they were elsewhere, because you _couldn't_ hire someone with more expertise to guard you, if you made unpopular decisions. High-ranking families wouldn't just mutter and grumble, they could overthrow you with bloodline abilities that could verge on unstoppable. Even a kage couldn't defeat **all** the assassination attempts if a village turned against them.

And while the hidden villages were ostensibly controlled by their countries, they had nothing that could stand in their way if they were unhappy enough to attack. They had no force to control them with. If they issued orders that weren't obeyed, the worst they could do was cut off food supplies until the village decided to attack, and once that happened they were unstoppable, unless they could pay another hidden village and another government enough to stop it, and that was usually enough to weaken a country so much that it curled up on itself, and died.

So the countries listened to the villages who listened to the people, and the people weren't ready to turn their backs on people who had saved them.

And so negotiations took place. Each village sent a delegate, and they were important enough that you could tell it mattered—Leaf sent Hyuuga Hinata, not the Hyuuga heir, not anymore—she had relegated the role to her younger sister—but far from a branch member, and the Hyuuga were a powerful clan. And her guard was made up of a team that had earned a name for itself, in the field: power, brains and beauty, the story went, and nearly undefeatable.

Even Sand and Sound sent teams. The former had softened under its new Kazekage, so it was not unexpected, especially considering how they had tied themselves to Leaf, and they sent the Kazekage's sister and brother, high-ranking ninja, a sign of respect. (No one commented on the fact that they remarked at least once—more than that, if you could hear like Sound could—that they had mostly come because they had heard that some old acquaintances from Leaf would be coming as well.)

And the latter—Sound—sent Jiroubou, still a high-ranking member in Sound. The Sound Four had disbanded after they had all been defeated by Leaf and Sand: all of them, except Kidoumaru, already weakened, had barely survived, and they had only managed that because of survival jutsu that had been built into their cursed seals. They weren't immortal, just hard to kill. Orochimaru had discovered how to do that much early on, and that extra edge had been enough to save them, even if they had been severely weakened. It had taken them all years to fully recover, but they had survived that near-death and they had survived the war, fighting alongside people they had tried to kill, once upon a time…

Kidoumaru had taken over the position of Otokage; he wasn't the strongest of the villagers, but he was the most _strategic_. It would have made him a good diplomat, but he was too high-ranked. Of the rest of the Sound Five, Sakon and Ukon were too abrasive and self-focused, Tayuya was too aggressive and abrasive, and Kimimaro was dead; Sound was a loosely-ranked village, with only the upper level (the remains of those Orochimaru had hand-picked) and the lower level (mostly missing-nin and the remains of now-defunct independent tribes, but still highly skilled.) Even beyond that, most of the shinobi of Sound were missing-nin, nobody that could be considered diplomatically neutral enough to send to peace-time, end-of-war negotiations. Of the ones that were left, they didn't have a high enough ranking or enough of a name for themselves or enough power to make it look like a compliment, like the village was devoted to the treaty, for them to be sent; Sound had no high-powered families to pull members from, something that would boost an otherwise ordinary ninja to possible diplomat status.

That left Jiroubou. He was considered the weakest of the Sound Five, but he had still been considered as a possible replacement for Orochimaru's body. He was perhaps not a natural diplomat, but Sound didn't have many people who were, and he was patient, at least, and unlikely to make nasty comments or try to kill someone just for the hell of it. And at the very least, other villages would be likely to underestimate him, and that was, as any shinobi knew, one of the best advantages you could have in a fight.

oOo

And so the diplomats had convened.

Actually, that didn't cover the breadth of the negotiations that had been involved in the process already. A meeting place on neutral territory—a traditionally neutral, now mostly defunct, by-and-large unimportant city-state—had been arranged, and a date (halfway through the last month of spring) set that didn't intrude onto any of the various cultural or governmental events that might impede on a village's ability to be present at the conference. A caterer that met the safety precautions of a handful of (paranoid) hidden villages had needed to be found, and permits of travel found for those who needed to cross borders, and servants hired and rooms refurbished and housing assignments made. Welcoming parties and banquets and suitably entertaining entertainment all needed to be arranged.

Diplomats had been chosen and reviewed, of course, not just for the main negotiations but also ones from the different trades in the villages, the people who supported the ninja—blacksmiths, shopkeepers, traders. Each hidden village would be sending a medical envoy as a sign of goodwill, and the councils had chosen civilian diplomats to present _their_ interests. Along with the actual shinobi diplomats were advisors, people to keep them from bowing too easily to demands the villages as a whole wouldn't agree to meet, and lawyers to review contracts before they were signed, so that what they signed was actually what was verbally agreed to, without any weaselly loopholes.

It had been two months of planning, the first frantic and the second panicked, for all of the villages involved.

But everything got settled out, even the issue of the minor official of from a village along a potential trade route's unreasonable demands in terms of housing and what qualified as a retinue, with a minimum of fuss. By and large, people _wanted_ this to succeed.

oOo

Debates had been raging for three days past two weeks when a break was called—really, it was a chance for messages to be sent, councils to decide, tempers to cool and diplomats to strategize personal alliances among each other.

So people had put aside the issues of who Sand would negotiate water rights with in exchange for what, and which villages would agree to let how many of shinobi of what level from what other villages stay for how long when which sort of missions brought them to the area, and how much passage—governmental, civilian and ninja—would be allowed over the borders at all.

Instead, the rather silly host of the event—Lady Ellensgrove, the wife of a minor noble who lost most of his power but managed to retain his castle—had arranged what she'd termed an 'outing' to see the region, complete with carriages, hired guards and 'interesting local tour guides.'

She clearly meant well, but it was equally clear that she didn't really grasp that the diplomats whose favor she was trying to curry were battle-hardened ninja who really didn't need carriages, guards and tour guides, and didn't really want gourmet picnics and scenic lookouts so much as a chance to _move_ after days cooped up inside.

In public and in her presence, at least, the main groups had been polite—she really did mean well, and it wouldn't reflect well on their village to return favors with rudeness. The teams that had accompanied the shinobi to the event—the guards, even when the diplomats were more than capable of defending themselves—on the other hand, the ones who really didn't need to be diplomatic, had several jokes relating to the event that went around (and, really, not _all_ of them were off-color.)

And that silly, barely-noble, well-intentioned woman had _thoughtfully_ placed Leaf and Sound's diplomats together because, as she'd twittered to Jiroubou, 'I noticed that you never really seem to have the chance to get to know each other! Hinata's a lovely girl, I'm sure you'll like her, and, really, it's a shame that you two haven't spent any time together, what with you two being close in age and all.'

The general consensus was that, on reflection, it had been hysterical to see the hulking, surly-looking Jirobou shying away from the petite and harmless, if horrifyingly clueless, lady of the house.

The parties involved, of course, were much less amused.

Hinata had thought that Chouji would blow a gasket when they had been informed of the travel arrangements. None of their team had been what you'd call enthusiastic.

oOo

In the end, their carriage had set off with Jirobou in one corner, Hinata in the opposite one, with five of the more important civilian diplomats in-between them. All the regular guards had been given a 'day off,' in Lady Ellensgrove's words, much to Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji's disgust. There wasn't anything they could do about it—to be seen following the carriages would be seen as mistrust at best and an under-handed spying or assassination attempt at worst; the three of them were spending the day in the small local town instead and, almost undoubtedly, they would have a better time than Hinata.

After the usual pleasantries had been exchanged—slightly awkwardly by Jiroubou—a short silence fell.

It didn't last.

One councilmember—a Yoshida something—had attempted to win himself (and his causes) Jiroubou's favor with increasingly ill-advised advances; two of the others started (or restarted) an (increasingly louder) argument that they had clearly had over and over, nearly to the point of memorization. The fourth, a fairly high-ranking priest, was getting travel-sick from the rocking and bouncing of the carriage over the rough mountain roads they were traversing, and was turning an unfortunate shade of green.

And the last member of the carriage was attempting to chat up Hinata, apparently not really cognizant of what, exactly, any ninja was capable of; he had apparently dismissed the ability of a woman, even if she _was_ a kunoichi, to rip one of his arms off and stuff it through his chest, all with minimal effort.

By noon, Hinata had developed a tension headache and was about ready to scream; by the looks of things, Jiroubou was in the same boat—she would sympathize with him, but she was still far from trusting him. Getting out in the open air had reduced the volume of the two who had been arguing, but they had started trying to win approval for their sides, dragging the other members of their groups into it. The priest had apparently eaten something that had disagreed with him, and was complaining, faintly but insistently, about how travel always affected his systems to whoever was in earshot. Jiroubou's politician had started telling stories about his "good ol' days on the campaign trail" ad nauseum, despite increasingly terse replies and a growing scowl on an already imposing face.

Hinata's suitor had moved into trying to edge closer to Hinata's seat on the picnic blanket and attempting to feed her tidbits off of his plate. He hadn't been counting on her ability to intercept his chopsticks whenever he tried to stick them in her face, and the glares Jiroubou had started sending him kept him slightly more cowed than he would otherwise have been.

A touch of steel had started to enter Hinata's tone. Then he managed to drip sauce down the front of her shirt. The slightly more survival-oriented priest got a good enough grip on his shoulder to keep him from going after her as she swiftly rose and departed from their picnic, searching their hostess out in the clutter of blankets, baskets, food and people that crowded the clearing they were lunching in.

Lady Ellensgrove jumped slightly at Hinata's tap at her shoulder, but recovered quickly and gracefully, for a non-ninja.

"Hinata! What happened?" she exclaimed. "Oh! Your beautiful outfit!"

'It was just a small accident. Do you know if there's something I could change into? I'd rather not wear my lunch all day," said Hinata quietly, ending with a small smile.

It was probably for the best that Lady Ellensgrove wasn't all that observational.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I can't believe I forgot something like a few changes of clothes! And here you are, with nothing nice to change into, and all these nice young men around—you told me that you haven't got one of your own, right? It's such a pity, such a nice girl like you…"

Hinata's smile was slightly more pained, this time.

"And we're still half a day's ride from anywhere! Oh—never mind that! There's a convent near here, they should have _something_ at least. I hadn't planned on seeing it, but maybe if some of the guards accompanied your carriage, you can make an extra stop, and then hurry to catch up; I'll go with you and talk to the rest of your carriage-group, see if they won't mind too terribly!"

As it turned out, the priest _did_ mind, though nobody else really did. At least, they didn't _say_ that they did, which was good enough for Hinata at this point. The clothes alone wouldn't have bothered her much at all, but with that horrible man—she wished _very, _very hard (if uselessly) that it was the sort of situation where she could defend herself more **forcibly**, or at the very least frighten him with a judicious application of the Byakugan—not that it would mean anything to this self-important toad of a country bumpkin.

After a little bit of fussing, room for the priest was found in another carriage, and the two groups—Hinata's carriage and the rest—set off and, shortly, parted ways.

The carriage once more fell mostly silent. The arguers—both elderly—had fallen asleep, lulled by the rocking of the carriage; Jiroubou had apparently had _words_ with the politician, who was sulking in a corner. Hinata had begged off the attention of the flirty one, saying that she had papers she needed to work on.

"A pretty thing like you shouldn't worry about that sort of thing," he'd replied.

Hinata had had to grind her teeth to keep from demonstrating the seven basic methods of fieldwork torture she'd been taught, plus that rather fiendish trick with the Byakugan Neji had developed.

"We're here!" the driver announced eventually. It had been an hour's ride, maybe a bit more; Hinata was glad for the chance to get out of the carriage and into the fresh air again. The carriage was stuffy, and the horses kicked up so much dust that they couldn't even leave the windows open. Hinata much preferred running and walking as a form of transportation, she had decided about half an hour after starting out today. It wasn't much of a surprise. At least they had gotten to walk the last half-mile or so, after the road had narrowed, and worsened considerably; they had left the horses and the carriage in a small clearing off the side of the road..

There was the smell of blood coming from within the convent walls; Hinata could tell that Jiroubou could smell it, too. They both stiffened instinctively, going onto high alert; it was the wrong season for pig-slaughtering, and it smelled like a bloodbath had taken place.

The arguers were starting to complain about how they were all just standing around outside and _why_ didn't they go in and have a nice cup of tea in the shade while Hinata found new clothes?

She shushed them with an imperious hand, backed up with a glare from Jiroubou; they fell quiet.

"Byakugan!" she whispered harshly, and her would-be suitor jerked back a step as her eyes shifted, the pupils gaining a minute amount of definition and the veins around her eyes popping. She smirked slightly, vindictive. She got her chance after all.

A moment was all it took. "There's no movement in within the walls—it was probably ordinary bandits, but better safe than sorry. You lot, get behind me." The guards fall in with the diplomats and the carriage driver with almost no argument.

"I'll take defense," Jiroubou rumbled before she could say anything more.

"No, you take offense," she said, after a minute. "I'll be at a disadvantage if they don't rely on chakra use."

He nodded a silent agreement, and headed towards the convent gates. After a brief look-over at the imposing iron, wood and stone construction, he pushed it open, the chain that had held it closed on the other side snapping.

Their traveling companions' eyes were huge, all of them clearly out of their league and desperate to say something—_anything_, in the arguers' case. They were incapable of shutting up for longer than a brief minute. Another glare with her still-activated Byakugan silenced them.

There was blood soaked deep into the ground; it squelched slightly, sticky and glistening in the heat and glare of the midday sun.

"There's no bodies," whispered one of the non-ninja. The air was humid, viscous.

This wasn't the time or place for it. Better to get back and find someone on-duty. "We should head back—"

Before the words were even fully out of her mouth, she'd whirled to throw a kunai at the insect, a dusty brown, that had struck out at them from one of the deeper pools of blood and gristle. A surge of arrows a moment later struck uselessly against an earth wall Jiroubou had raised.

Hinata was on the ground, observing the pinned creature; it was maybe a foot long, ochre and dusty brown and olive green with spatters the red-black of dried blood. It was oozing clear globules and liquid, its wildly scissoring mouthparts razor sharp and wetted with some pus-colored glutinous fluid.

"Who's attacking?" said Jiroubou, who was sizing up what he could see for its potential risk.

"The nuns," said Hinata. "Or other females with the religious penance. Something is wrong with them. They're—"

One of them started convulsing, stomach heaving. "It looks like she's in labor…" Something crawled out, and the woman grew stiller, motionless except for the occasional twitch. "—it's the insects. They're parasites; they need a host to feed off of, and to protect them, while they grow. There's a species of wasp Shino showed me who does the same."

A nun dashed around the shelter of their wall, eyes blank and mouth slack though her breathing was labored.

Her belly was distended, squirming, a gross parody of pregnancy; the larva inside it heaved against the jarring her running caused. One of the guards is retching, and Hinata couldn't blame him; she was disgusted by the creature—even though she couldn't actually see it—and its host, and she had seen a lot, during the war.

A lazy wave of earth made the nun stumble, the ground turned traitor under her feet. Another deceptively slow curve came clapping down onto her prone form.

And then the wave of insects came rushing over the ground with stunning speed, their wings not large enough to lift them, each one the size of the first—a foot and a half—or larger.

She was appreciating her time with Shino more and more. The mobile ones had to be the adults, and the ones in the nuns the larval stage; there was a chance that the adults could infest them.

"Don't let them touch you if you can help it," she said, preparing herself. She got the first ones with kunai, stabbing them instead of throwing—there wasn't enough to last her through the fight as it was. She kicked a third, and heard a wet _pop_ as her foot cracked through the exoskeleton and into the soft inside.

The things had to be shinobi-bred; they ran off of chakra reserves, and fed off of the nun's (weak) chakra coils while they infested them with their own energy. It bolstered the nuns' bodies, enhanced them; it was frightening to think what they could manage with true ninja.

They could probably make it through the mass of insects to the gate, but it was a risk, and one they couldn't take, not with the high-powered diplomats and representatives they had with them, and not with the numbers of insects they were looking at. Not when they didn't know how long it took for a parasite to be transferred to its host, how long it required that parasite to take control, and what other, potentially dangerous, abilities they could hold.

She retreated slightly, the insects wavering at the edge of some barrier she couldn't see. "Byakugan!" she said again, her vision wavering into shades of gray and black. This time, she knew what to look for, and the ground was swarming with the insects: they were living in narrow tunnels beneath the ground, feeding off of the spilled blood; there were more nuns outside the gates, around the walls, some clinging to life and harboring an insect and others dead.

But the closest building—the beekeeper's hut, Hinata realized with a shudder—was free of them.

"That shed," she said to Jirobou, and he understood. He made a string of quick seals, muttered something she couldn't quite hear above the chittering of the insects, and planted his hands on the earth. When he rose, they were dripping blood.

With a roar, plates of rock ripped out of the earth, crashing over each other, and the outer convent wall exploded outwards; hopefully, it would take the remains of the nuns with it. There was a narrow trail leading to the shed left still and safe, and not much else. She started off along it, the guards close behind her—they were useless in a fight like this, and knew it; their armor weighed them down, and the insects were dangerously fast. Jirobou chivvied the rest of the party in front of him, carrying the smarmy politician and the carriage driver—the politician wasn't fast enough, and the driver's knees had given out—slung over one shoulder.

Hinata was not happy at being forced to trust this person from Sound. She knew who he was—he had been the one who had nearly killed Chouji—and even what he did during the war, for their side, was not quite enough to erase that. Even if he had been the one to take a blow for a wounded Leaf ninja, a messenger who had never seen much action, on his first battlefield—and he had been; later, questioning the messenger, she had gotten the impression that he had hero-worship and something bordering on terror for the ninja in equal measure. Apparently, the yelling, six-foot-something, heavily-built, bleeding and mud-splattered Sound nin with death in his eyes had made an impact, and for a few split seconds he had thought that he was going to be killed, because the villages may have allied but they were not _friendly_.

It _irked_ her, to cooperate with him. To trust him not only with her life—and she had no allusions that, despite the war she had survived, that this could be the death of her, if she didn't stay on her guard—but with the lives of the people she was with, no matter how annoying they were, was nearly painful.

Still, she trusted him, because there was no way in Hell she was getting out of there with seven civilians on her own.

For example, she couldn't carry two grown men and still move, quickly and accurately, along a path of shifting rock.

They reached the hut door—the only wood in a windowless stone building, she was relieved to find—and Jirobou kicked the door open as she guarded it, killing several more insects. The ones that were left were approaching fast: only the most capable and the luckiest had escaped being caught between plates of rock—and they were lucky that there was only the thinnest layer of topsoil above the hard stone of the mountains here.

Especially since it meant that all of the buildings—even the beekeeper's hut—were made of stone.

Activating her Byakugan again, Hinata searched the building for flaws, places the insects could get in, once more. She was satisfied, except with the chimney. The insects couldn't fly, she knew, or they would have avoided the stone—she guessed that they were too heavy for their wings to support them. It's a saving grace.

Still, they could climb, and she didn't know how well.

"Block the fireplace," she told the guards, then steeled herself and headed over to Jirobou.

"How do we escape?" she asked, the best conversation starter she'd had all week. At least she wasn't being forced to exchange mild pleasantries, all mindfully avoiding the subject of _certain_ events, with him.

Jirobou carefully eyed the inside of the hut. Really, it was mostly set up for beekeeping, with a Spartan bed and cupboard in one corner that served as living space.

The soldiers were experimenting with netting around the fire place; the politician was huddled in a corner, muttering a prayer; the carriage driver was fighting off a panic attack; the arguers were apologizing to each other for a lifetime of antagonism; the romantically-inclined _man_, for lack of a better word, was blindly leafing through a series of journals that had been left on a small shelf.

Hinata shuddered to think of what had become of the writer.

oOo

"So there's a chance that the creatures will sleep at night?" said one of the guards. He was the most at ease with them—he apparently had seen action in the last war, so he was a lot more used to the shinobi sort of warfare than anyone else, excepting Jirobou and Hinata.

"If we're lucky," said Jirobou grimly. It startled Hinata, a bit—she wasn't used to the idea of him as _human_, as someone who was working towards the same goal she was, when it was as selfless as this. Really, either one of them could have left on their own, easily. Nobody would blame them—either of them—for escaping and leaving the others behind. Hinata didn't even _think_ of entertaining the idea, but for Jirobou, it's more than unexpected that he hasn't even mentioned that he could.

It was… Hard, to fit this new image of him over her old one, the one that had had an obsessive devotion to Orochimaru, and the one that had had enough sadism to trap her teammates, her friends, and slowly devour their chakra, seeming to relish in every minute of it, degrading them as he did it—

Part of her insisted that it was a trap, that he was luring her into _something_. A more thoughtful part of her thought that, if you can eat the chakra of your companions, of course you're going to be feared. It wondered if anyone raised by Orochimaru could be kindhearted or sympathetic. And Hinata herself had played psychological games on the battlefield, relentlessly taking advantage of whatever edge she could gain, because the Hyuuga eyes were eerie and well-known, and the exaggerated and falsified stories that got passed around were both more and less unnerving than the truth, leaving her enemy off-balance. And she was still alive, maybe partly because of that.

And Orochimaru was dead, and she had done horrific things in the name of her village and her Hokage. She was not the innocent she had been at twelve. Jirobou had done some horrible things—_Chouji had almost died_—but right now, he was trying to get them all—including her—out of here alive. And maybe that counted for more.

"Wait," said the man who had been pursuing Hinata, although her eyes—or, more likely, the veins—seemed to have lessened his interest. She stiffened anyways, and almost didn't notice that Jirobou stilled as well, his ever-present glare upping a level from vaguely upset to moderately threatening.

"Whoever wrote these journals… They bred the insects."

"Let me see," Hinata demanded. He handed her the book without comment, and Hinata wondered how much that has to do with her, and how much it has to do with Jirobou. She was grateful, but slightly unnerved; he was _defending_ her, almost.

The page the book was open to showed an enlarged drawing of a bee; the writing was in some sort of code—suspicious in a journal ostensibly about beekeeping.

Also shown on page was a diagram featuring creature's chakra coils; they matched the ones on the things outside.

"You're right," she breathed. "If I can crack the code…"

"Can I see it?" Jirobou rumbled, and Hinata was momentarily ashamed at forgetting his involvement, before she remembered that she shouldn't be.

Still, she handed the journal over.

He scanned the page for a few minutes, lips moving silently.

"It's a variant on the aspen-oak code," he said finally. Hinata shook her head—it's not one she had learned.

She got him the rest of the journals and settled in to watch, and to wait. It was nearing full-dark, but the insects hadn't settled down. If anything, they were more restless. She used her Byakugan, briefly, on 30-minute intervals. It would be a long night, and she needed to be careful that she didn't burn out, exhaust herself to the point where she was defenseless, or hurting herself..

Sometime during the night—it was hard to tell, cut off from the outside and any way they might have to tell time like they were—she gave a brief warning to Jirobou and fell asleep.

She was awoken sometime later by a hand on her arm; the light touch was more than enough to awaken her, and she was instantly alert. She didn't relax when she realized that it was Jirobou, her own hand was dwarfed in comparison to his.

"I think I have the story pieced together," he said, and so she listens.

oOo

"The beekeeper had been raised to be a ninja. She had been part of a clan with a bloodline limit—one with a talent for altering organic material. Most of her family were medic-nins, though they weren't above well-paid thievery and assassinations. Almost no ninja were.

"But the girl didn't appear to have inherited it. It happened. The family had deemed that it was unsafe to let her have children of her own, and in her early twenties she had been sent to the convent.

"The nuns had liked her well enough, especially the previous beekeeper, who she was apprenticed to. She was good at the job, and spent her time out in the beekeeper's hut, which suited her just fine. The other nuns didn't mind how reclusive she was, and she was pleasant enough when she was around them, and so she was mostly left to her own devices.

"Sometime later, her bloodline had activated. It was a flawed inheritance, which was why it had showed itself so late, and so it had brought madness with it. Because she was such a loner, the rest of the nuns never realized that something was wrong. Her new abilities went totally unnoticed, as did the craziness.

"So the woman began experimenting. She used the bees, because they were easy, and it was natural for her to be studying them. She even went so far as to search out experts from around the area, to ask them for advice, and as a result was regarded as a harmless eccentric.

"She ended up digging into the ground and setting up her experimentation there. She began to bring wasps into her experiments, and then flies, mixing and matching habits. The size, aggressiveness, intelligence and abilities of each generation increased, and the woman delighted in it. She saw them as children, so she designed the parasitic larvae to settle in the womb once it had entered the host, assuming they were female.

"But she was crazy, and her method was happenstance. Her experiments began to get away from her. She was nearly parasitized twice, moving grubs around between holding cages, and the insects were far too large to live out their larval stage in the small creatures she could breed in the area, so she designed them so that they could live in blood-soaked earth, forming a porous protective shell to keep them safe, one that they could still draw blood and nutrients into.

"She realized that their size meant they couldn't fly, so she selected for speed instead. Feeding them royal jelly she collected from the nests meant that they grew even faster. She realized that they were cooperating with each other, and it delighted her. She didn't think about the potential consequences.

"And then things started going wrong. She was ignoring the hives, and productivity dropped. Her façade of sanity was cracking. And then one of her experiments got loose.

"It moved into the area near the beehives, and she captured it before any of the other nuns saw it, but the bees knew what it was. They all fled their boxes, one after the other. The Mother Superior of the convent was demanding to know what happened.

"So she set them loose. You saw the rest of what happened."

oOo

Hinata paused. "Wait. The underground chambers… Byakugan!"

This time, she concentrated her attention on the floor. There—a hairline crack too regular to be natural. Beneath it there was what she had assumed was the foundation. The room was utterly empty of chakra of any sort, insectoid or other.

There was a tunnel leading from the far end of the room, moving in a straight line towards the outer wall, then beyond it.

"There's a tunnel out," she sighed, letting her Byakugan drop. "I think we have a way to escape!"

The tunnel entrance had been somehow sealed shut, so Hinata had had time to explain the situation while Jirobou worked on getting it open. His first few blows had served to wake them all up.

"I've got it," he said at least.

Hinata simply nodded tersely. She could only hope that the tunnel—wherever it let them out—didn't have any nasty surprises waiting for them on the other side.

She ended up being the rear guard for their band, with her 360-degree vision. Jirobou lead the group, and just a day or two ago that would have rankled Hinata, letting someone so doubtfully trustworthy lead the group. Now, though, things had—changed. Much as she hated to admit it, he had proven himself at least reliable, and maybe more.

The steps dropped down a few feet, then opened out into a surprisingly old storage area, converted to a rough lab area: there was still abandoned cages, scribbled notes, jars of honey (incongruous next to jars of blood) and shed insect casings scattered across the benches, shelves and floor, as if it had been organized but had been scattered at the very end.

One cage was filled almost entirely with the mixed skeletons of small animals—mostly rodents, Hinata could tell, though she could see what she guessed what was a rabbit skull.

Everyone in the party was tense, and the non-ninja were a sharp movement short of panicking.

And yes, Hinata had to admit, it was eerie, with the abandoned remains of the experiments and the heavy earthen ceiling above them. It must have been especially uncomfortable for Jirobou, the tallest of them all. It was easier for Hinata, who was definitely the shortest.

The entire room stank of blood, rot and the sticky-sweet smell of spoiled honey. The man who had been harassing her was gagging.

A rough tunnel, just wide enough to crawl through on your hands and knees, stretched on ahead of them, on the other side of the room. There were scratches in the compacted dirt that made up the entrance, ones that looked like they had been made by the insects. Hinata suppressed a shiver.

Jirobou walked up to the entrance and thumped a fist lightly against it, cocking his head to the side to listen to the vibrations.

"It's sound," he said, finally. "And we should all be able to make it through."

"Oh, God," moaned one of guards.

"We should get moving," said Hinata.

oOo

The tunnel had narrowed again, and now they were down to army crawling, the roof scraping into Jirobou's back hard enough to draw blood. Hinata stopped to check for insects with her byakugan as often as she could manage without draining her chakra reserves too quickly, and Jirobou paid constant attention to the vibrations of the earth around them, the threat of a cave-in and the threat of the insects equally important.

One of the guards was claustrophobic. He had been fighting back a panic attack for an hour, and it was just another weight on the camel's back for Hinata--and _she _had more room to maneuver than the rest of the team did.

The group slowed, and then stopped. "We're close to the ending," came Jirobou's voice, floating back towards her. Hinata was happy enough to weep at the news. She wasn't alone.

She was halfway out of the cave entrance when the first insect struck at them.

"Stay back!" bellowed Jirobou, and Hinata flipped herself up and out of the tunnel entrance to stand next to the sound nin.

"Back in the cave," she ordered sharply. The insects couldn't penetrate the stone the tunnel was made of here—not quickly, at least, and the cave entrance was more defendable than the whole rag-tag group would have been.

The claustrophobic guard whimpered, but they all obeyed. The two shinobi fell into position in front of the entrance, and the steady trickle of insects suddenly became a flood.

It was surprisingly comfortable fighting with her back to Jirobou, Hinata realized. It felt safer than it should have. _He_ felt more reliable than he had any right to.

"Watch out for the bear!" he yelled, and Hinata turned her full attention back to the fight and, yes, the grub-possessed bear.

oOo

"You can come out now," said Hinata finally, after a final sweep of the area with her byakugan.

The seven of them slowly emerged into the sunlight. They were all streaked with mud, sweat and blood, and Jirobou and Hinata were smeared with the splattered remains of the insects. They looked out-of-place in the now-serene woodland clearing, blinking at each other in the sudden light and slowly calming down.

"Where are we?" asked one of the arguers, tremulously. They had been quieter, cowed by what was going on, at least.

"Not in a tunnel," said the claustrophobic guard fervently.

"Byakugan!" Hinata muttered, her vision zooming out. There was the tunnel, trace it back— "Somewhere between a mile and two miles away from the convent."

"We need to head back to get the horses," said the carriage-driver. Hinata and Jirobou exchanged looks—they hadn't thought to head back to the horses; it wasn't how shinobi traveled, and they could travel faster on their own.

Not with seven ordinary charges, though, two of them elderly and one out of shape.

"Which direction?" asked Jirobou, directing the question at Hinata.

"This way. Follow me…"

oOo

"Fuck," said Jirobou conversationally as they surveyed the carriage—smashed—and the horses.

The **horses**. They were laying on the ground, sides dark with sweat, eyes still rolling with panic though their movements had slowed. Their hides twitched irregularly with the movement of the insect larva infecting them, and the front legs of one of them had been torn off and shredded into a messy puddle where still more larvae lay. The viscous solution that coated the mandibles of the adults was smeared over the gaping wounds, and it looked like it was numbing the creature's pain and congealing the blood, keeping it alive just a little longer despite what had happened to the poor animal.

"My _horses,_" whimpered the carriage driver. "We need to put them out of their misery."

"We can't," said Jirobou immediately. Hinata agreed.

"But—" He grimaced, his words cut off, then clutched at his stomach.

"Get away," Hinata ordered sharply, but it was too late.

The grubs were smaller than the ones in the nuns had been—perhaps an earlier model, Hinata thought. Their chakra coils were a modified, subtler—weaker—version than those had had. They were mobile, even though they hadn't pupated into the adult form, and the smaller size made them more maneuverable and a smaller target. They might have been faster.

Quickly judging the distance she was from the others—she was the closest to the squirming, quickly-moving mass of grubs—she went into the defensive spin of the Eight Trigrams Palms Heavenly Spin, muttering it's name as she went. Stopping as the last of them was pulverized by the force, she moved into a defensive crouch—

—only to look up in time to see some of the larger type, full adults, dropping on her from above—

—and then she was hit by an immovable weight, warm against her skin, and she was rebalancing herself in midair to land in a crouch and bounce up to her feet and stab a kunai through the insect that had landed on Jirobou instead of her, who had to have been the one to get her out of the way that quickly.

They stood still for a second, and nothing moved but the horses and the still-convulsing corpse of the carriage driver; bleeding holes gaped in his abdomen.

The two shinobi finally relaxed, and what remained of the rest of the party followed their lead. Jirobou formed a handful of seals, pressed his hands into the ground and said something Hinata couldn't quite catch, but she's wasn't worried that it was an attack. Something had—changed, in-between meeting an old enemy of a friend diplomatically and fighting with him, back-to-back, in defense of the innocent. Or at least, the uninvolved.

Lines of calligraphy traveled over the ground with blinding speed and surrounded the horses. The earth grew up around them, covered them and then contracted with iron strength and lightening speed. There was a sickening squelch, then nothing. Hinata wasn't surprised, even if it wasn't something she would have specifically expected. It made sense to take out as much of the enemy as you could.

She _was_ surprised, though, when Jirobou continued to work, lifting out a section of the stone that made up the earth here—still scowling, and making the civilian party gasp a little—before he put the body of the carriage driver into the hole, then replaced the rock he had removed.

It wasn't what she had been expecting. Wasn't what she had expected of Jirobou. Field burial of fallen comrades was something she considered automatic, but it wasn't—a necessary thing. Wasn't something she associated with the heartless ninja of Sound.

But that had changed, hadn't it? Jirobou had proved himself a person, a _caring_ person, before then. This was merely… More proof. He wasn't simply an enemy shinobi, now, albeit one she had been forced to cooperate with, he was.— Someone she could fight besides. Someone she would trust to lead her out of a tunnel and into potentially deadly situations.

"Rest among the heroes who have fallen in the line of duty," she intoned. The ritual words are automatic. "Rest among the greatest of us all. Be at peace, knowing that you have done great good. Rest well."

"We should leave," said the claustrophobic guard, the one who had seen action with other shinobi, after a short minute of respectful silence. The smarmy politician jumped at the unexpected words.

"Yeah," said Jirobou. Hinata nodded her agreement, and they set out towards the road.

oOo

They were a good ten miles away from the convent when they stopped in a small grove of stunted fir trees to rest. They still hadn't seen any animal life, but the two arguing men had turned out to have been students of the same religious hermit for a period of time, who had taught them how to scavenge in these mountains for food. They had amassed a modest meal for all of them by the time they had stopped for a rest, and everyone had been glad to eat, if not necessarily glad to eat what had been provided. (Wild onions, wild greens, a handful of tart berries and raw wild mushrooms weren't the worst of what Hinata had eaten, but they weren't high on her list of favorite foods. Jirobou and Hinata had both avoided the wild mushrooms, and Hinata had glanced at him from across the clearing they were sitting in, and had smiled wryly at him when she noticed him picking them out of his plate as surreptitiously as she was. He had smiled, hesitantly, back at her.)

They had decided to skip a fire because of the unwanted attention it might bring them, but it was getting _cold_. They were high up in the mountains, and Hinata was afraid that they would have to start walking again soon—the moon was full enough to provide at least a little light—to keep them all from freezing.

And they _could_ start walking. Everyone had gotten at least a little sleep, Hinata and Jirobou trading off watches so that they were never left off-guard.

It didn't bother her, that Jirobou had been watching over her while she slept. She had been more worried about Mr. Smooth Moves would try with her while she was asleep, and had purposefully situated her pile of sleeping ferns away from him for that very reason, but hadn't thought about the strategical advantages of her position in relation to Jirobou, the way she had in the carriage, when they had set off on this whole adventure.

Hinata hadn't expected that to happen.

There was sudden movement on the other side of the camp and Hinata whirled to watch it, but it was only Jirobou, a dark cut-out in the dim light the moon provided. He stood up, then walked over towards her, sitting down a polite—a diplomatic—distance away.

"It's cold," she said.

"I don't really feel it."

There was silence, long and obvious.

"I was born in the far north, and we got used to chilly nights."

"Konoha is always fairly warm."

He nodded, acknowledging the statement.

"Thank you," Hinata said suddenly. "For pushing me out of the way of those bugs."

Jirobou shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "It's tactically sound. And you're an ally."

Yes. She was an ally. She just wasn't used to thinking of _him_ like that. Apparently, he was better at adjusting his worldview than she was.

And he was the one who had ended up almost dead at the hands of Leaf shinobi, while she was the one who had had five friends captured by him, one nearly killed in a no-holds-barred, evenly-matched fight to the death.

"You've saved me this past day as well," he added, as if to make up for Hinata's silence, or to give a better explanation for his behavior.

Hinata simply nodded, then smiled at him, quiet and reserved but warm. There wasn't much else she could think of to say, beyond tactical thoughts.

"We should get moving," he said, then noticed that Hinata had opened her mouth to speak as well.

"I was about to say the same thing," she offered, and he smiled back at her.

oOo

Dawn was breaking, and the party of eight was lagging. The diplomats weren't used to conditions this harsh—little food, little sleep, hard exercise, no peace—and even the ones who had been trained for it, the guards and the shinobi, were reaching the end of their strength.

Hinata stilled as she heard a voice calling her name.

"_Ino_?" she yelled back, and there was a shout, then two figures running out of the near-by woods to meet them.

"What happened?" asked the kunoichi, worry and calculation equally strong in her voice, as the other rescuer, Chouji, also one of Hinata's bodyguards, spoke into a headpiece with Shikamaru.

Somehow, Hinata's tired mind managed to dredge out the proper report form, although Ino was, technically, her immediate inferior. "The local convent has been overrun with mutated parasitic insects of shinobi origin, resulting in escape attempts that have prevented us from outside contact. Injuries are negligent, although we have suffered a single fatality. The casualty was a civilian."

Ino shook her head. "Lady Ellensgrove's been frantic."

"That's surprising," muttered one of the guards, and Jirobou snorted slightly. Even Hinata was forced to hide a smile.

"What was the name of the casualty?" Ino continued.

"Higashimura," Jirobou interjected. Again, Hinata was surprised that he had bothered to learn the names of obnoxious, low-level diplomats they would never have had to work with.

"Have negotiations broken down?" she asked.

"No. There haven't even been any accusations of foul play…"

Ino was interrupted by the politician who had tried to worm his way in Jirobou's favor pushing forward. "You! Guard! I demand you find me members of my own retinue and a carriage!"

The kunoichi was fuming. "It's okay, Ino, he's not used to dealing with shinobi," said Hinata tiredly. The past two days were catching up to her, and she was close to swaying on her feet. She completely disregarded the presence of the man she was speaking about—she wasn't in the _mood_ for diplomacy in the face of stupidity. Not when one of her friends was being pushed around.

Chouji walked over to join the group. "Transportation has been arranged, and all the involved parties informed." He was careful to stand between Hinata and Jirobou, the only real threat, and one much realer to him. He also glared at the politician, who was trying to look unobtrusive; he was already being _looked_ at by Ino and Jirobou, and Hinata's face was stony, and had been just as cold when she had announced her disapproval of his demands.

There was a tense silence, and it wasn't lessened by Hinata catching Chouji's eye and silently commanding him to step down, which he did—slightly. Jirobou merely looked accepting of the situation, of how he was viewed as an obvious, unpredictable threat by the leaf nin.

Finally, two carriages came clattering over the rough road, followed by a sizable number of troops and a smaller number of cavalry. The politician sagged visibly with relief. Hinata groaned.

"We have Lady Ellensgrove's direct request to transport you back, instead of allowing you to walk," said Ino, a particularly wicked gleam in her eye. "It would have been improper of me to refuse."

Chouji was mouthing 'I'm sorry' at her over Ino's shoulder.

"Where's Shikamaru?" asked Hinata as civilians headed, thankful and relieved, towards their rides. She was only _maybe_ stalling.

"He was in charge of a team further away, and they stumbled upon a small nest of bandits. They finished quickly, but he wants to check out the convent," said Chouji.

"Can I see the headset?" Hinata asked. "I want to give him the specifics for the insects…"

oOo

Ten minutes later, they were on the road. The only upside that Hinata could see was that they had been offered food, which she had immediately accepted.

Also, the arguers and the politician had been moved out of their carriage, though they had been replaced by one of the guards, who was already asleep. Again, Hinata was in one corner of the carriage and Jirobou was on the opposite, with the guard across from her and the one who kept on harassing her on the left, sliding closer in a manner he probably thought was stealthy.

"It's terrible what you've had to go through," he cooed. "A delicate lady like you."

Hinata swallowed her mouthful of food. "I'm a _shinobi_," she said pointedly, before taking another bite.

"Another crime! Such a beautiful flower should never be forced to risk bruising, especially not in the cruel, cold-hearted trials of war."

Hinata forced herself to relax her grip on her kunai. It was for the sake of Leaf, and it was her duty to continue to act as a diplomat… And she had suffered through worse than this, on the battlefield. Probably. Maybe.

He leaned closer to her, and Hinata leaned away. "I can make you feel like the proper lady you deserve to be…" He whispered.

Only long practice—on Hinata's part—was keeping him alive. She was by far the most even-tempered (and cool-tempered) of the Leaf kunoichi of her year, although she had lost much of her shyness as she had grown, but this man was enough to try a saint's patience, and then some.

_Diplomatic. Immunity!_ her mind yelled at her.

So Hinata stood, bracing herself against the rattling of the carriage—it was worse, now that they were on the return trip; they were hurrying to return—and sat herself firmly between Jirobou and the sleeping guard; there wasn't much spare room, and she was pressed against both of them.

True, it put her closer to someone she had avoided, as much as she could, on the way there, but it meant that the _person_ across from her couldn't press close to her again. She would take past enemies over constant, uncomfortable, harassment, apparently, when the past antagonist had saved her life, and she had saved his, and they were supposed to be patching up the relationships between their villages, anyways.

Jirobou's eyes were slightly wider than normal; he looked surprised, maybe a little spooked—like a skittish horse, her tired mind provided—although that was ridiculous.

A short second later, his maybe-surprise had shifted back into a threatening glare—it was almost funny, Hinata thought, how often he did that, glare—and the diplomat was cowering in Hinata's newly-vacated seat, obviously aware of Jirobou's fisted hand, resting on his thigh.

Urgh. To top things off, she was feeling slightly sick to her stomach. The faint sour smell given off by the blood and insect guts that had soaked into her highly impractical, if very diplomatically appropriate, outfit wasn't helping. And she was so tired…

oOo

Hinata woke with a start as the warm bulk she was lying against shifted, and she realized with a fair amount of alarm that she had been resting herself against Jirobou. They were the only two left in the carriage—the others must have already left. They had all seen it, anyways.

And that she had drooled slightly on his shoulder. How mortifying.

And, yes, she was now blushing heavily.

"O—oh! I'm so v-very sorry, I d-didn't mean to—"

And the tail end of her childhood stutter had returned to haunt her.

Fortunately, she was being interrupted. "Hinata—!" wailed Lady Ellensgrove as she flung open the carriage door.

"Lady Ellensgrove—"

"Your lovely guards told me everything that happened. I can't believe I recommended you do that…! I almost sent you to your _death_, I've been absolutely beside myself— And everyone else! Worse of all was you and Jirobou, you're both so young, with your whole lives ahead of you, and such _nice_ people—not that the others aren't wonderful, though I'm afraid that that Yamada can be a bit of a bore at times, but you two really are wonderful— And to think we almost lost that! And it was you two who saved all the rest, I'm _so grateful_ for that, although the death of Higashimura is a true tragedy, I'm so _sorry_ for not thinking of something so incredibly, simplistically basic as a security check for the stops along the tour—"

Her husband was behind her. "The doctors want you to spend a while lying down, dear," he interjected. "The stress isn't good for you."

Hinata took her chance. "Oh, Lady Ellensgrove! Nobody could have predicted something like that, we don't hold it against you at all…" She scrambled out of the carriage perhaps faster than was seemly, and took a gentle grip on the woman's arm, leading her firmly back towards the castle. "And I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself because of something that's so utterly not your fault… Here, let me take you to a couch or your bed…"

Lady Ellensgrove had dissolved into frantic tears.

"She's a nice young lady," said the Lord Ellensgrove with vague, fatherly approval, and Jirobou could only hope that the subtext he was reading into that was incorrect.

oOo

It was a bright morning, and a full day had passed since the group had returned to the castle.

They were still in the midst of the recess that had been called, and all the shinobi diplomats present had decided to capitalize on that. Lady Ellensgrove had only been persuaded that it was an acceptable idea by a long, drawn-out, remarkably civil argument, but she had eventually buckled; Lord Ellensgrove was perfectly willing to go along with whatever.

The air was almost crackling with happy intent and long-suppressed energy.

They were a large party, altogether, made up of the diplomats from the hidden villages, and their guards; even those who weren't necessarily interested in the chance to cause a little destruction had agreed to join in for the chance to negate a risk to the near-by villages, and even those not interested in helping someone who wasn't going to pay them were willing to go along with the whole thing for the chance to win favor and keep approval it would offer.

"I do wish you wouldn't do this," said Lady Ellensgrove nervously to Hinata. "Not after last time."

"My presence is even more essential because of that, Lady Ellensgrove," said Hinata. "My knowledge and expertise makes me the best choice for the job." Her voice was patient, understanding—Hinata was rather fond of the woman, in an odd way.

"It will be a good break," rumbled Jirobou as he came up besides the two women.

"Oh! It's so good to see you again. And I'm so glad you two will get the chance to spend more time together!" Her bright expression clearly showed her (slightly improper) level of interest—her matchmaking attempts were not subtle.

Hinata shared a surreptitious glance at the comment, wordless understanding passing between them, before Hinata could think of what she was doing.

Since when had that been a natural, automatic action for her?

"We're moving out in five," called Shikamaru as he passed by them, distracting Hinata from her thoughts.

"We should get going," she said, her voice soft. Lady Ellensburg nodded, the movement a little too jerky for her to seem relaxed or calm. Hinata could accept that, as long as she let them go.

She _needed_ to let off a little tension.

oOo

They were about half a mile from the convent, and there had been no sign of the insects.

"Remember," Hinata said, as they prepared to move on, "Do whatever you can to keep them from touching you." There was a murmur of recognition, assent.

They had made good time, moving much faster than the carriages had—they were ninja, after all. Hinata had gotten the feeling that a number of people had been as annoyed by the horses and carriages as she had been.

Including Jirobou. Hinata had overheard him talking to another diplomat—one from Cloud, she thought. "It's good to **move**, huh?" he had said.

Hinata was increasingly aware of the fact that she was always conscious of Jirobou's position in the group. It was embarrassing, and even her rationale—that she was embarrassed about falling asleep on him—was embarrassing, by virtue of both the excuse itself (she had _fallen asleep on him_? And then _drooled_?) and it's transparency.

There was a sudden explosion off to the left, and Hinata realized that insects must have been sighted. She smiled, a predator's smile. Perfect.

Soon they were in the thick of things: there were insects and ninja everywhere, and jutsu going off all over—it was a miracle that nobody had gotten hurt, at least as far as Hinata knew. Certainly, she hadn't heard any screaming, just yelled jutsu names—the insects were by-and-large silent, and it made the battlefield remarkably quiet.

Eventually, she found herself backed against Jirobou again, a familiar situation. "Hey," he said, with a soft smile—it made his face look warmer, less threatening. She smiled back.

oOo

Two weeks later, the negotiations had finally concluded. Treaties had been hammered out, promises of goodwill clearly defined in legal and binding terms, documents had been signed and sealed under witness.

The diplomatic parties were preparing to depart to their home countries and home villages, most of the shinobi more than ready to shed their diplomatic robes for sensible fighting clothes and the chance to simply knock heads together, instead of being forced to reason with them.

Hinata was, at least, and she normally _preferred_ a more diplomatic approach.

She surveyed the castle grounds one last time. She had said her good-byes to Lord and, especially, Lady Ellensgrove the night before; her party was leaving slightly before the break of dawn, along with most of the rest of the shinobi groups.

And there was Jirobou and his retinue, getting to leave as well. Across the courtyard, he looked up at her.

They met each other halfway across the courtyard, both walking slow enough that their casual speed was bordering on hesitant.

"It was a pleasure to work with you," she said at last.

"And with you."

There was a brief moment of silence before Hinata spoke again. "Could I have an address?" She hurriedly added "In c-case there's any further business involving the insects. I know I'd like to be appraised of the situation. If it were me." At least she hadn't stuttered, much.

He simply nodded, and addresses were exchanged. Another silent moment passed.

"I should be going," said Hinata at last. She could see Ino pacing, Shikamaru leaning against his bags and apparently asleep, out of the corner of her eye. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye," he responded, and Hinata turned and left.

oOo

She waited a week and a half after she had returned home before she sent a letter (mostly) about incidents involving creatures or events similar to the insects. She received one two days later, soon enough that she knew that Jirobou had sent one before he had received hers.

oOo

It was mid-morning, two months after Hinata had first served as diplomat for Konoha in the Post-War Mass Negotiations, as the school teachers were calling it when they were teaching.

She had just finished her kata when there was a knock on the practice-room door; curious, she went to open it.

She was surprised to see Jirobou, a branch family Hyuuga serving as his guard, standing stiffly at attention. Jirobou himself looked mostly nervous and awkward.

"Hello," she murmured as she approached. "This is a surprise."

"I'm—serving as the envoy to Konohagakure from Otogakure currently," he said.

"It's nice of you to drop by to see me." Hinata was blushing slightly, to her horror. "But would you excuse me a moment so I can change?"

Jirobou stood to the side so she could pass. The man guarding him relaxed slightly at her recognition of the man he was accompanying.

Hinata returned a few minutes later. She had maybe put a bit more effort into her appearance than she normally did, but she wasn't bothering to think of that right now.

"Would you like me to show you around Konoha? It's nice to see things from a native's perspective when you're visiting a place."

"That sounds—nice," said Jirobou, and smiled.

Hinata smiled back.

--End--


End file.
